Depression

July 20, 2015

There's an interesting article on the CNCNews website discussing the lack of scientific research behind the chemical imbalance model for explaining depression.

“And as early as 1998, the American Psychiatric Association in its textbook says we’re not finding that people with depression have any abnormality in their serotonin, but because it’s such an effective metaphor for getting people to take the drugs and sell the drugs, it’s continued to be promoted.”

Not only are antidepressants not effective, but taking them may actually exacerbate symptoms of depression...

"while people suffering from depression may not have low serotonin levels to begin with, the use of SSRIs reduces the brain’s capacity to produce serotonin on its own, leading to a worsening of symptoms when patients stop taking the drugs."

July 18, 2015

While working with a depression support group it became apparent that many of the clients struggled with very negative ways of thinking about things and very negative ways of viewing the world. This was interesting to me, because I battled depression myself for years. I spent many years taking antidepressants without a significant relief from symptoms. I eventually decided to stop and pay attention to the negative thinking in my own head. As I researched it, I found it had a name: Learned Helplessness.

Learned helplessness is a concept developed by the psychologist, Martin Seligman. Seligman worked with dogs who were exposed to electrical shocks. Dogs who were allowed to push a button with their nose to stop the shocks learned to act to stop the shocks. Dogs who were unable to escape the shocks learned to do nothing and wait for it to abate. They gave up. The conditioning taught the latter group they were unable to help themselves.

This same behavior can be seen in some children and adults who endured traumatic childhoods. Children who grow up in households where the parents' behavior is erratic and harmful will eventually stop trying to figure out a coping mechanism and just hunker down and endure the violence. Imagine a child with a parent who is struggling with drug addiction. Sometimes mom is unconscious, sometimes violent, sometimes pleasant. The child never knows what they are going to get. And the mother's behavior with the child is heavily influenced by the drugs, not the child. What kind of behavior the mother displays depends on whether she; has drugs, is running out of drugs or is unable to get more drugs. None of this is in the child's control. And nothing the child tries to do to get the care they need from the mother will work if the mother is high from using drugs or raging because she can't find money to buy drugs. So the child learns not to try to change their mother's behavior, because their efforts are futile. Some of these children will space out or dissociate. Some, like Seligman's dogs, will hunker down in the house and just endure the mother's abuse. They learn they are helpless. They learn not to try to change anything.

As adults they often adopt the same coping behavior. They believe life is to be endured and feel they have no ability to act to change things. Life is an endurance test, a series of mishaps that must be endured. They can have a "Chicken Little" type of mentality, constantly feeling, "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!" These folks often view themselves as too helpless, too incompetent or too depressed to change the events in their life. This creates a way of behaving and thinking that will result in pessimism and depression. If this is the problem, medications will have little effect. The problem is learned behavior, not biochemical.

Finding that medications will not help can be disheartening. But it can also be empowering. A learned behavior can be unlearned. The trick is to determine what the thinking is and learn how to think like a happier person does.

Seligman also studied naturally happy people and found the opposite of learned helplessness was learned optimism. Seligman studied the differences between people who were basically pessimistic and people who were naturally optimistic and found three primary differences in their thinking patterns: permanence, pervasiveness and personalization. In a nutshell, optimistic people look at a failure as "I may have been thwarted at this goal (not their entire life), but it's a temporary setback (not a permanent failure) and it was just bad luck (nothing to do with them personally)".

Learned Helplessness/Pessimism

Learned Optimism

Permanence

Believe bad events are permanent

Believe good events are temporary

Believe bad events are temporary

Believe good events are permanent

Pervasiveness

Failure in one area means is interpreted as meaning they are a failure in their entire life or as a person in general.

Success, or happiness, in one area does not spill over into other areas.

Failure in one area does not mean they are a failure as a person or a failure in their life.

Conversely, happiness in one arena may brighten all other areas.

Personalization

Blame themselves for bad events.

Attribute good events to external factors, i.e. "luck".

Take credit for good events.

Blame bad events on external factors.

Some people would say the optimist's outlook is not entirely realistic, and they would be right. Research has shown that people struggling with depression more accurately assess the outcomes of events than people who are more optimist. Happier people tend to incorrectly assume that things will be all right when they won't.

In the end, happiness may be the result of a little bit of self delusion. But does that make it bad?

November 18, 2012

Are psychiatric diagnoses valid? I'm beginning to wonder. At best, they are sometimes misapplied to the point of becoming meaningless. At worst, they are causing great harm both psychologically and physically.

November 05, 2012

I was once working with a child who was also seeing a psychiatrist. Like many children with whom I work this child had numerous diagnoses: ADHD, Bipolar Disorder, Anxiety Disorder and Intermittent Explosive Disorder. However, when the mother would describe the child's behavior I would instantly think "trauma". I kept saying this to her, but she was swayed by the authority of the doctor and maintained his belief the child was mentally ill. Until her child told her he had been sexually and physically abused.

November 06, 2011

"To call normal children diseased, abnormal, chemically imbalanced. To make patients out of them for profit. This is not only anti-scientific, it is contrary to our Hippocratic oath. It is immoral, and it should be exposed and stopped."

December 08, 2010

Last year I posted several articles about maintaining your mental health during the holiday season. I'm sure I'll be posting new ones this year, but it doesn't hurt to recap past posts. I doubt the stressors of the holidays have changed in one year...

September 29, 2010

In working with clients struggling with depression I often find that the work environment provides a lot of distress and discontent. I've not been exempt from these influences myself and always find the strategies of management to be somewhat curious.